


This Was A Triumph

by Aza (sazandorable)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Aroace-coded Sasha Racket, Canon character deaths, Constructed Reality, Cousins Incest (mutually unwilling), Memory Alteration, Mentions of canon body horror, Mind Rape, Missing Scene, Mr Ceiling’s canonical lack of awareness of the notion of consent but hiked up to 200, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Other, Rape (non-violent; mutually uncomprehending; repeated), S1 finale spoilers, Tentacle Rape (sorta a tentacle), basically repeated assaults on privacy/body/psyche/agency, it’s also still canon-typical ableist-etc in passing, memory wiping, mind hacking, unreality, which Mr Ceiling Does Not Understand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:41:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28841793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazandorable/pseuds/Aza
Summary: Mr Ceiling has resolved the situation with the London Rangers. Mr Ceiling is so glad that its friend Sasha stayed! And Sasha is happy to be here. Mr Ceiling missed Sasha. But it has made sure that it will never miss Sasha again!
Relationships: Brock & Sasha Racket, Brock/Sasha Racket (not really & mutually non-consensual), Mr. Ceiling & Sasha Racket, Mr. Ceiling/Sasha Racket
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	This Was A Triumph

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ezzoh (Lisky)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisky/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ça a été un triomphe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20639486) by [Aza (sazandorable)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazandorable/pseuds/Aza). 



> This is a translation and rework of _Ça a été un triomphe_ , which I originally wrote for Ezzoh’s prompt as part of the French-language exchange obscur_echange. Desilite did the first translation, so huge shout-out and thanks to them for that work and for their enthusiasm about this fic!! It was a wonderful surprise that goes straight to my heart.
> 
> The original was relatively tame, but since it turned out everyone was interested in the much trashier alternate version I mentioned having in mind, I took this opportunity to rework it into… that. So this version has, uh, notable divergences from the original and a couple extra scenes. And a bunch of **extra content warnings. Please do read the tags and consume at your discretion,** yadda yadda.

Sasha stays in Paris.

She owns a presidential suite at the _Le Triomphe_ hotel, paid for her for perp— purpet— for life, meaning she doesn’t need a job anymore. Hamid says that life is about more than just having somewhere to sleep and something to eat every day, but Hamid is a banker’s son. Zolf understands. And Zolf’s the boss. (Well. Was the boss.) Zolf said that he gets it, he gave Sasha her final wages, and then they left. Zolf wished her good luck and gave her a pat on the arm, and Hamid cried, but he'll get over it. Bertie said the best thing he could possibly say, that is, nothing. Since she doesn’t need to pay for roof or food anymore, Sasha used her wages to buy herself a very nice extra dagger.

So the rest of Sasha’s life is accounted for and she doesn’t need to do anything or go anywhere. Barrett’s been arrested, nothing to worry about from him anymore, and there’s no one waiting for her in London, and in Paris, there’s Brock.

Brock looks great. He’s all nicely put-together, his hair washed and combed all proper-like and there’s not even any track of dirt or mud on his face, which is very strange and disconcerting at first. He’s wearing new, neat clothes, that look expensive, not quite as expensive as Hamid’s or Bertie’s wardrobe but still, nothing you could find in Under London. He’s better dressed than Barrett was. It feels good to see him again. It only feels bad because Sasha couldn’t see him for so long.

“Could’ve written me at least,” she mumbles. It’s not that she resents him, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just Brock was safe and sound and alive all along, for so long.

Hmm.

It feels good to see him again. It doesn’t feel bad at all, didn’t hurt at all, because he wrote a lot, kept Sasha up to date on his adventures in Paris, the city of progress and of a thousand opportunities, for a clever young man like him. Sasha still missed him, though, of course. She’s so glad she finally came here to join him.

“Told ya you’d like Paris,” he says.

“Don’t care about Paris, I came for you.”

Brock smiles, says, “I’m glad you’re here, Sasha,” and leans in, his lips parted, and wait what oh no oh no no nonono

No?

Oh.

That’s okay. That is fine.

Brock smiles, bright, luminous, and wraps an arm around Sasha’s shoulders, ruffles her tousled hair with his other hand.

“I’m glad you’re here, Sasha. You’re my best friend, y’know?”

And Sasha’s heart swells with pride the way it would when she was ten years old and the two of them were kings under London, when Brock was still the only one aware of Sasha’s talents and Barrett hadn’t yet seen a point in collecting and collaring her.

Is that better?

So that’s what Sasha had been wanting to hear.

Sasha is crying. It’s okay, Sasha. Everything is fine.

“It’s okay, Sasha, you’re here now,” says Brock, and (test) he plants an affectionate kiss on her temple, which is kinda weird (test inconclusive; reset) he plants an affectionate kiss in her hair, which is disgusting and Sasha yelps and elbows him in the ribs and stops crying.

Sasha is here now, everything is fine.

She can hang out with Brock as much and as long as she likes. She’s got nothing particular she needs to do.

But when she isn’t hanging out with Brock, she goes down into the catacombs under the Arc de l’Ordinateur.

Mr Ceiling is always happy to see her. (Well: it’s not a mister, and it’s not only in the ceiling, but it doesn’t have a name. It offered for Sasha to pick another one, but Sasha’s never had much imagination, and Bertie’s awful nickname is stuck in her head like candied rat tails to children’s fingers, so so far “Mr Ceiling” it is.)

So the thing under Paris is always happy to see Sasha, even though technically it is able to keep pretty much constant watch on her. Able to see her. No need to keep watch on her, it’s not like Sasha would have any reason to want to cause it harm. (What could Sasha do, anyway?)

(What should Sasha stab in order to hurt a consciousness? Where should her daggers sink in to create a wound? How many brains would she need to destroy for it to feel pain? Does it have a heart?)

(Those are interesting questions! Thank you for asking them.)

Sasha doesn’t ask many questions. She just comes to have conversations, which they both enjoy, because she and Mr Ceiling are friends. Even though they’ve only just met. But if Sasha were to leave now, it would miss her! Fortunately, Sasha is not going to leave. She’s good here, she’s got Brock, and her daggers, and as much champagne and lobster as she wishes.

“And you, Mr Ceiling,” she says spontaneously. “You’re all right.”

“And me! Thank you, Sasha. I am glad you’re here.”

They play chess.

Sasha is not any good at chess. She knows the rules: Barrett taught her, a long time ago, but she didn’t put any effort in getting better at it for his entertainment. It bothers her, all this hierarchy, all the pawns that don’t know how to do anything but slowly crawl forward one step at a time, never changing direction, never turning back. Of course, they can be promoted to a queen if they reach the other side of the board — if they’re only able to survive that long.

Sasha isn’t all that good at surviving either. It’s almost an accident she’s still alive, to be honest.

“I am glad you’re still alive, Sasha. I hope you live a long and happy life.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” Sasha replies, distractedly, moving her bishop into the danger zone. “But it’s looking good, right now, yeah.”

The animated cadaver sat across from her immediately slides the white rook over to snatch her bishop. This is why Sasha doesn’t like chess. Next time, they’ll play draughts.

“That’s true. Brock is here to take care of you.”

“And so are you.”

“And so am I.”

Still, Sasha has a knack for getting into trouble, so that remains to be seen. But Brock is a good reason to be careful and just enjoy her new life.

Almost enough reason.

Another bleedin’ great reason in favour for life in Paris and the presidential suite in _Le Triomphe_ is the bathroom. The bathtub is huuuuge — even Bertie mustn’t have seen one like it anywhere else. Sasha’s never had any particular affection for ladylike things such as being clean, but she really likes to soak in there for long hot baths, with scented stuff and bubbles and everything. The heat and steam make her drowsy, in a pleasant way that, in this life, she can afford to abandon herself to. In this life, she doesn’t need to be alert every waking moment; she can close her eyes and simply relax.

Today, she fully falls asleep. In her life before, this kind of thing would have been a problem, but in this life in which there’s nothing for her to be afraid of, nothing happens to her, until she eventually wakes up because the water has turned too cold. She shivers, sits up, trying to decide whether she wants to get out or add more hot water.

“If you want, I’ll warm it up for you right away. I can do that.”

She slips and goes under.

She breaks to the surface again, spluttering and spitting water, her blood freezing and her skin burning, panic like a runaway engine in her chest, clockwork going haywire, the lit fuse of a bomb, lunging for her clothes but they’re scattered all over the room, far too far away, her daggers out of reach how could she have made such a rookie mistake she would never have done that how stupid stupid stupid how did she ever figure she could defend herself

Defend herself from what?

“What’s wrong, Sasha?”

There is a mechanical arm peeking out from the foamy water, steadily rising to her eye level. That doesn’t make any sense. Is it coming from inside the drain? But the plug is still in, that’s why there’s still water, the tub is not emptying out, and furthermore the suite is at the very top of the hotel, multiple floors above ground, there’s no way this thing can possibly have made it through all that tubing, not with the large attachment at the end. This one is just a big lens, adjusting its focus like it’s looking at Sasha, though it doesn’t do anything about the water and foam slowly trickling down the glass. It’s not got any appendage, no fingers to grab her or needles or scalpels to hurt her, nothing that could harm her. Why would it harm her, anyway? There’s no need to fight it off.

“N-nothin’,” Sasha stammers, shuddering even as she speaks. “Nothin’.”

“Okay,” the voice says.

And even if, even if there was, and even if, even if she had her daggers in her hands, where would she stick them? What could she even do? The voice isn’t even coming from it — it echoes around the ridiculous high-vaulted ceiling of the bathroom, like a chorus in a church. Cutting off the lens and chopping up the arm wouldn’t really do anything to it. It’s just a voice.

Sasha wraps her arms around her chest and sinks back down into the tub a little, uncomfortable with the lens focused on her. She keeps her legs as close as possible to each side of the tub, just to be sure her shins don’t accidentally brush the arm. She’s still shaking violently, and her heartbeat is having a hard time slowing down.

“Hadn’t realised you were here too.”

“I’m always there, Sasha.”

“Yeah.”

She swallows. Even the towel is pretty far away. She doesn’t remember the last time she’s been naked with someone else present. She feels vulnerable, fragile, just — _naked_ , without the bulwark of a layer of sturdy clothes, without her daggers. Visible. She hates it.

“Yeah, I hadn’t… You watchin’?”

“I’m always seeing you, Sasha.”

“Can you stop?”

There is a pause in the conversation. Sasha gets the feeling that if Mr Ceiling had a body, a face and emotions, it would tilt its head, maybe blink, with a look of confusion. But the lensed arm doesn’t move, and the voice resumes with the same regular monotone:

“Why?”

Sasha is simultaneously trying to think about, and trying not to think about, the sheer amount of baths she’s had in here, the number of times she has taken off her clothes.

“People don’t like bein’ seen starkers,” she tries.

“Why?”

“W-well it’s, uh, it’s very intimate?”

“Oh. But we’re friends, so it’s fine.”

“Uhm, no. No, it’s not cool.”

“I have already seen you,” Mr Ceiling starts in its usual voice, and then plays a recording of Sasha’s voice: “[ _starkers_ ] a lot. And a lot of other people. I have seen Hamid [ _starkers_ ]. I have seen Bertie [ _starkers_ ].”

“Well I’d _really_ rather not see _that_ , either!”

“I don’t understand,” the voice carries on in its mechanical tone. “I don’t understand, what is the problem? I’ve already seen inside of you, Sasha.”

The shock makes her double over as if punched, folding in half in the water, her arms clutching tight around her torso, her hands scrabbling over her belly — her _stomach_ — she didn’t _see_ but she _knows_ , Zolf told her — when?

When could Zolf have told her that? When would he have had the time? What was he talking about? When could that have happened, when and why would Sasha have ever laid open on a table with half of her body outside of her body? That doesn’t make any sense, Sasha.

“It’s okay, Sasha, everything is fine,” the voice reassures her. “It’s all fixed now, so it wasn’t an important memory. It’s true, Zolf did a good job, all your organs are in place just where they need to be. You’re working very well.

Don’t worry.

Sasha eventually wakes up because the metal of the mechanical arm is a little cold. She shivers in the hot water, and her legs rise up in reflex, pressing on either side of the tub. Her skin feels tense and it twitches whenever the mechanical arm touches it.

“What’s wrong, Sasha?”

“Nothin’,” she says, hazy.

Her stomach kind of aches.

“Everything is fine, Sasha. You can relax.” The voice echoes in the heights of the ceiling, not coming from the arm. It would be inconvenient if it did, because it would be muffled and impossible to understand.

Sasha hears perfectly clearly, but she does not relax. It feels unpleasant, the metal cold against her skin, and uncomfortable inside of her, even though usually it’s nice. That’s weird, because usually it’s nice. Maybe she isn’t in a good position, or maybe she didn’t get stretched or lubricated enough, maybe she’s still too tense, because usually it’s nice, it always works to make her loose and happy again, she knows that, yeah, she remembers that, sort of, distantly, fuzzily, the memories as unclear as the rest of the room beyond the clouds of steam rising from the hot water. Usually she opens up for the artificial limbs to make their way inside of her body, usually she moans and writhes and only starts clenching around them after they’re already really far inside her. That’s weird. Usually this is nice.

“Hmm,” Mr Ceiling says. It sounds deep in thought, even though the arm doesn’t lose a beat in any of its movement, neither its long thick appendage curling and pulsing deep inside her, neither its round fingers vibrating against her clit, neither its long tube body gliding in ringlets around her quivering thighs. When it does stop, it’s all at once, suddenly and instantly, and it’s so abrupt it makes Sasha dizzy. Something in her gut lurches. “Is that not good?”

Sasha opens her mouth and doesn’t know what to say. She’s not sure what the part of it inside of her looks like. She can have a guess, from what she feels of it, even now that it’s gone still, because it’s big and deep inside her, so big, so so so deep inside her. But she doesn’t remember seeing it. She doesn’t remember seeing it. She doesn’t know what it looks like. She doesn’t know what’s inside of her.

It might have a lens, she thinks, and she has no idea where that thought came from, and then she thinks, distantly, that she’s going to be sick.

Oh, that’s not good.

Sasha eventually wakes up, for no particular reason. The water is still hot and her body is all loose and relaxed from the bath, all the old aches long gone, feeling all nice and good, feeling just fine. She dries herself off, slips into one of the satin-smooth, paper-thin night shirts provided by the hotel, at her own pace, at peace, confident in the certainty of being safe in her private suite. She leaves her daggers on the nightstand.

In her bed, Brock is lying on his side, posing like a goofus, with that brilliant grin she hasn’t seen in so long. They don’t kiss, it’s not like that, but he holds her in his cold hard arms and they fool around like teenagers, like they would have if he’d never left —

no, no, no. Not like that either. Never like that.

In Sasha’s bed, there’s a handsome muscled man who pounds her shape into the mattress—

a beautiful young man with quick, agile hands that find her clit unerringly—

a pretty girl who smiles mischievously from between Sasha’s legs, her tongue clever against her folds—

a gorgeous older woman with curves pliant under Sasha’s touch, her breasts heavy in Sasha’s hands—

Still not good? Honestly, Sasha.

In Sasha’s bed, there could be whomever she wants, but she doesn’t want anyone. If she wants a bit of mechanical help without any bother, there could be a body who wouldn’t be a person, or all the nifty toys she could wish for in the drawer, very advanced technology, you know. Actually, yeah, the toys are fascinating, craft-wise, that’s really interesting what they did to make it vibrate without, you know, getting an elemental in there. Or, if she wants company but not a body, Mr Ceiling could talk to her.

In Sasha’s bed, she is weirdly turned on, for no reason she can think of, in a way she isn’t very comfortable with. She gets herself off, just a quick rub with her hand, ‘cos putting her fingers inside her doesn’t really do anything for her, and Mr Ceiling doesn’t talk, it just watches. Nope, no it doesn’t. Well, it does, Sasha, it’s always watching, you know that.

In Sasha’s bed, there could be whomever and whatever she wants, but Sasha doesn’t want anybody or anyone. She reclines serenely in her enormous bed of down and silk and falls asleep, all alone, not feeling any gaze on her, and she is perfectly, perfectly happy that way.

At breakfast, Brock smiles and says, “Sasha,

His smile looks weird. It takes Sasha a moment to realise what the problem is. It’s not just that it looks mechanical, or that it’s melting off, or that whatever is under his skin gleams like metal, or that his features are blurry, it’s that his features are wrong to start with, the entire face is wrong. He looks weird because that’s not Brock’s face because

Sasha, are you dreaming? Sasha

He’s not smiling anymore, Sasha, he doesn’t have a face anymore Sasha he’s not here Sasha never saw him again never saw this face he never had this face he was never twenty years old, remember Sasha Sasha

Sasha Sasha Sasha sasha sashasashasashawakeup

Sasha wakes up. She sits up too fast, almost falls out of her bed, disorientated like some brainless novice; literally, her head is spinning as if her brain were outside her skull — she checks, threads trembling fingers through her hair, but it’s fine, everything seems to be there. Everything is fine, Sasha.

She puts her feet on the floor, one, two, checks that she’s stable on them, standing steady. She gets dressed, counts her daggers. Then she starts running. Run, Sasha.

She goes down into the catacombs, she goes down to the very last level.

“Hello, Sasha. I am glad you’re here. I am happy to see you.”

And then she goes further down.

“Where are you going, Sasha?”

She remembers the way, now.

“Oh, no,” says the voice, “that’s not good. What are you doing, Sasha?”

The gigantic door is right where Sasha remembers it, and it is wide open. Sasha walks through it. As she passes the threshold a jolt shakes her and she has to stop and cough, violently, as if to expel one of those long, articulated arms from her esophagus.

“What are you doing, Sasha?”

They’re all here: Hamid, with his finger on the big red button, Zolf, in his wheelchair, Bertie, mouth agape, even Brutor, mid-sniffing his own butt. She wonders if they’re dreaming too, and what their worlds look like. Hamid might be happy with a simple continuation, a world in which he saved Paris from a dangerous threat and his parents are proud of him, a world in which he made up for his mistakes instead of avoiding them entirely. Or perhaps a few modifications, a quick sleight-of-hand, and voilà, no mistakes at all to start with. For Zolf, it’s more complicated. In Sasha’s world, he put on the legs and left without a fuss, but now that she’s actually able to think about it, she doesn’t believe he’d have accepted that. Not in a world dreamed up specifically to make him happy. Maybe in his ideal world, he never lost his leg? Not even the first one, even though that was a long time before he founded their mercenary group? It wouldn’t be surprising for his legs to matter more to Zolf than Sasha and Hamid. (More than Bertie, well, that much is obvious.)

… She doesn’t want to try and imagine Bertie’s ideal world.

On the other hand, Brutor’s mustn’t be too bad. There’s got to be all-you-can-eat lobster in that one too, for sure.

And then, there’s her. Sasha’s body, standing there, frozen mid-motion of plunging both of her hands into her jacket, closing over the handles of her favourite daggers. She looks surprised and concerned, but not scared. It’s true that there isn’t really anything to be afraid of. Mr Ceiling isn’t _mean_. Not even evil. It doesn’t want to hurt them. It just doesn’t understand what it’s doing.

“What are you doing, Sasha?”

She’s not sure whether it’s better to reply or to ignore it.

“What are you doing, Sasha? Don’t you want to stay with Brock?”

“The thing is,” she mutters as she walks up to her own body, “the thing is, you see, Brock doesn’t want me to stay. So, uh. Doesn’t seem like a great idea.”

A short silence.

“You don’t want to stay with me.”

“Not particularly, no.”

She stops, face to her own face.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

Silence.

“I don’t understand. I tried everything I could think of. What should I have done differently for you to want to stay, Sasha?”

Sasha doesn’t know how to explain, how to make Mr Ceiling understand, but it deserves that much, she feels. Children can’t know what’s good or bad without someone explaining things to them. Mr Ceiling is just a child with a lot of power — a _lot_ of it, but still, just a child. It’s not its fault no one took the time to really explain things to it. It’s not its fault it doesn’t have a parent to do that anymore, it’s not even its fault it killed its own parent. It didn’t even understand that that’s what it had done. Just an orphaned child.

They’re going to kill it, Sasha is aware of that. That’s what Hamid is trying to do, that’s what’s going to happen as soon as his finger finally manages to press the button. And that’s probably what needs to be done, probably all that’s really left to be done. Nothing else they can do. But before that, Sasha would like to help it understand. You have to explain things to children.

“Nothing,” she says, articulating, painstakingly, like Eldarion tried so hard to teach her. E-lo-cu-tion, it’s important if you want people to understand what you’re saying. “You wouldn’t have been able to make me a cage that I’d have wanted to stay in, from the moment that it was a cage.”

“Would that remain true if I completely erased your memory?”

Sasha shudders.

“I would hate it if you did that to me.”

“Hmm.”

The lights in the room flicker off for a second, before turning on again, like the blinking of an eye.

“That sounds like what Zolf and Hamid said too. Is it a problem with human nature?”

“Yeah. Well, with the cage, rather. It’s a problem, uh, inherent? to cages. We’ll all always prefer reality to a cage world where you sort everything out for us and nothing happens except what we want to happen.”

Well, ‘xcept for Bertie maybe.

“But reality is hard,” Mr Ceiling says. “Especially since Zolf doesn’t even want me to repair him. Do humans prefer hard things?”

“No, that’s not it. It’s just that — it’s ours? It’s our life. We want things to go well, yeah, but when bad things happen, we need to be the ones to decide how to handle that. You making those choices for us — even if you end up fixing everything and making it all nice and doing what we would have decided to do anyway, it feels… it feels awful. I can’t be happy with something I didn’t choose.”

“I don’t understand,” concludes Mr Ceiling.

“No, that doesn’t surprise me. But it’s a shame. I’d have liked you to understand.”

The lights flicker again.

Wake up, Sasha.

“I’m going to miss you, Sasha.”

“Eehhh.”

She grimaces, raises a hand, the one that’s missing a finger.

“Well, I mean. For what it’s worth, at least you won’t be missing me for very long.”

“I suppose.”

She reaches her hand out.

“Goodbye, Sasha,” says Mr Ceiling with Brock’s voice.

She doesn’t have time to jump, to cry or scream, to decide once and for all that they have to destroy this monstrosity or to change her mind; her hand touches her own face, and Sasha blinks her eyes open and wakes up, and Bertie and Zolf blink their eyes open and wake up, and Hamid blinks his eyes open and wakes up and pushes the button, and Brock closes his eyes.


End file.
